Content uploaded by Marion Weissenberger-Eibl
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Marion Weissenberger-Eibl on May 27, 2015
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
Product Design for Industrial Services and Product-Service Systems
Abstract
In the literature, many aspects of the transition from product-centric pro-ducer of capital goods to solution provider have been discussed extensive-ly. However, guidelines and recommendations for the design of the physi-cal goods used in industrial services or in use-and result-oriented product-service systems are still lacking. By using large-scale quantitative data coupled with the explanatory power of qualitative expert interviews, the re-search presented in this paper tries to contribute to closing the existing gap in engineering guidelines for the integrated development of product and service component of product-service systems.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
A Product-Service System (PSS) is an integrated combination of products and services. This Western concept embraces a service-led competitive strategy, environmental sustainability, and the basis to differentiate from competitors who simply offer lower priced products. This paper aims to report the state-of-the-art of PSS research by presenting a clinical review of literature currently available on this topic. The literature is classified and the major outcomes of each study are addressed and analysed. On this basis, this paper defines the PSS concept, reports on its origin and features, gives examples of applications along with potential benefits and barriers to adoption, summarizes available tools and methodologies, and identifies future research challenges. © IMechE 2007.
Purpose
This paper aims to present a framework that will help manufacturing firms to configure their internal production and support operations to enable effective and efficient delivery of products and their closely associated services.
Design/methodology/approach
First, the key definitions and literature sources directly associated with servitization of manufacturing are established. Then, a theoretical framework that categorises the key characteristics of a manufacturer's operations strategy is developed and this is populated using both evidence from the extant literature and empirical data.
Findings
The framework captures a set of operations principles, structures and processes that can guide a manufacturer in the delivery of product‐centric servitized offering. These are illustrated and contrasted against operations that deliver purely product (production operations) and those which deliver purely services (services operations).
Research limitations/implications
The work is based on a review of the literature supported by data collected from an exploratory case study. Whilst it provides an essential platform, further research will be needed to validate the framework.
Originality/value
The principal contribution of this paper is a framework that captures the key characteristics of operations for product‐centric servitized manufacture.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a service development process that is adapted to manufacturing companies and to discuss its implications for companies with a traditional focus on product development and product sales.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper looks at new service development (NSD) literature and argues for a rationale to study NSD processes in a manufacturing context. Next, a generic NSD framework for manufacturing companies is presented. Examples are given based on an explorative multiple case study (ten companies) with in‐depth interviews and focus groups. The analysis reveals organizational requirements and other critical factors related to each stage of the NSD process.
Findings
A four‐stage service offering development framework is presented. Critical aspects of NSD in a manufacturing context are highlighted. The importance of considering both NSD and new product development (NPD) together is also emphasized.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations are based primarily on methodology; the case studies focused only on the service organizations of the manufacturing companies studied.
Practical implications
Managers need to be aware of the inter‐relationship that exists between NSD and NPD and on the specificities of service development in companies where an industrial logic dominates. A number of managerial implications are proposed and discussed.
Originality/value
The paper emphasizes the importance of latter stages in NSD, something that has not previously been extensively studied or addressed. In addition, to explicitly discuss NSD in a manufacturing context is novel.
Slowing sales growth for new products and falling profit margins have made adding services to products an increasingly attractive means of competitive differentiation for manufacturing-based companies. In response to this trend, this paper examines ways that manufacturing-based companies can leverage their core competencies and design services as business. It explores why a manufacturing-based company should go into service businesses in the first place. From surveys, interviews and financial analyses of multiple companies, we discovered that service businesses often stabilise the total revenue of a company, give sales a relatively long term platform and transform the incentive structure of companies and its relationship with the customer in many cases. The challenge companies’ face is how to successfully design or improve a product-service system. This paper suggests a seamless and systematic framework called design for service innovation (DfSI), along with a sequence of design methods for designing services. The method is then applied to a pilot case study.
The paper focuses on development processes in the context of industrial product-service-systems (PSS). The main influencing parameters for a comparison of different development process models and methods are brought together. The main purpose is to identify possibilities for the integration of product and service development processes into one process model. At the moment the development of technical artefacts is well defined in numerous development process models, but the development of service and its delivery is not very well defined: The paper starts with a short description of product-service-systems, including as an example their potential for developing mobile machines, and the importance of development process models. Then a brief analysis of the influence of services on the decision making process of PSS designers is provided, which leads to some constraints for the development of new process models in the context of PSS. Tasks like generating requirements or estimating system maturity at specific stage gates are discussed. From this analysis research questions and a scheme for the comparison of different process models are derived. The comparison scheme is used as a starting point for the research project which will use the Design Research Methodology as a framework. Finally the paper provides a first, coarse comparison of some models and methods for product and service development before it ends with conclusions and future prospects.
The companies that benefits from the `go downstream' theory are presented. Managing downstream businesses requires looking at new variables such as profit per installed unit, share of customer's total downstream-activity spending and total customer return over the product life cycle. Manufacturer's cannot afford to ignore the opportunities that lie downstream, if they do, the next decade will decade will be even bleaker than the last.
Reports results from in-depth interviews with 80 senior managers in
16 US-based multinational firms and from group discussions with 388
senior-level executives from 241 firms. The results indicate an attempt
by the majority of firms to move from product dominance towards a
service orientation. Identifies two major strategic hurdles: a
rethinking of the client's role as co-producer, including measurements
of client productivity; and the design and management of a new service
development process. The study identifies the client productivity
measurement issue as a major strategic hurdle and the authors suggest
that techniques used internally (such as behaviour modification,
training, and self-motivation) be turned externally onto the client to
increase productivity. The area of new service development (NSD),
another significant strategic hurdle, is an emerging and relatively
untouched subject. Identifies differences between new service and new
product development.
OVERVIEW:
During new product development, R&D engineers consider a wide range of often conflicting requirements, including product features, cost, quality, and manufacturability. Another factor, which companies often neglect, is to ensure that products are easy and economical to service and support—i.e., to install, to maintain, to repair, to operate, etc. Product support is essential for achieving customer satisfaction in many industries, including high-tech sectors such as computing as well as “low-tech” sectors such as domestic appliances and the like. Leading companies recognize both the importance of product support and the significance of evaluating support requirements at the design stage by using Design for Supportability techniques. This enables them to gain competitive advantage from customer support and earn significant revenues.
This study is based on the belief that economic organization is shaped by transaction cost economizing decisions. It sets out the basic principles of transaction cost economics, applies the basic arguments to economic institutions, and develops public policy implications. Any issue that arises, or can be recast as a matter of contracting, is usefully examined in terms of transaction costs. Transaction cost economics maintains that governance of contractual relations is mainly achieved through institutions of private ordering instead of legal centralism. This approach is based on behavioral assumptions of bounded rationalism and opportunism, which reflect actual human nature. These assumptions underlie the problem of economic organization: to create contract and governance structures that economize on bounded rationality while safeguarding transactions against the hazards of opportunism. The book first summarizes the transaction cost economics approach to the study of economic organization. It develops the underlying behavioral assumptions and the types of transactions; alternative approaches to the world of contracts are presented. Assuming that firms are best regarded as a governance structure, a comparative institutional approach to the governance of contractual relations is set out. The evidence, theory, and policy of vertical integration are discussed, on the basis that the decision to integrate is paradigmatic to transaction cost analysis. The incentives and bureaucratic limits of internal organization are presented, including the dilemma of why a large firm can't do everything a collection of small firms can do. The economics of organization in presented in terms of transaction costs, showing that hierarchy also serves efficiency and permits a variety of predictions about the organization of work. Efficient labor organization is explored; on the assumption that an authority relation prevails between workers and managers, what governance structure supports will be made in response to various types of job attributes are discussed, and implications for union organization are developed. Considering antitrust ramifications of transaction cost economics, the book summarizes transaction cost issues that arise in the context of contracting, merger, and strategic behavior, and challenges earlier antitrust preoccupation with monopoly. (TNM)